Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of her Department's Pension Credit Day of Action and associated awareness raising activities; and whether she has made an estimate of the number of applications for pension credit made as a result of those activities.

Pension Credit applications have increased massively following the launch of the Pension Credit awareness campaign in April. This builds on the extensive campaigning on this issue over the last few years.

Early indications are that the Pension Credit Day of Action on 15 June has been highly effective. The Day of Action involved working closely with broadcasters, media, newspapers and other stakeholder partners who were encouraged to reach out to pensioners to promote Pension Credit through their channels.

Although not all claims can be directly attributed to the campaign, the internal management information suggests there were over 10,000 Pension Credit claims made during the week of the media day – an increase of 275% compared to the same week in 2021, which itself was an enhanced week due to the 2021 Pension Credit Action Day.

The impact of these claim volumes on numbers of successful awards and on Pension Credit take-up will take longer to establish given the usual cycle involved in producing those statistics. However, the campaign is ongoing including encouraging the private sector to drive forward efforts to enhance claims, and specific effort to reach out to communities who have traditionally not claimed Pension Credit.

We are continuing to monitor the impact of the campaign and the Department will publish estimates of take-up in due course.